My back porch faces the rising sun. Most mornings I bring my coffee out to greet it. My meditation practice is finally becoming a habit. the reasons for this success are:

• Doing it every day
• The habit is anchored to my first cup of coffee
• Doing it first thing
• Keeping score
• Enjoying the process

Enjoying the process

I’m starting with this point because what happened this morning inspired this article. Meditation is a great example of a process habit. An outcome-based approach would be to focus on the goal of enlightenment. As a process habit, I focus solely on time and quality.

I set a timer for 10 minutes. Even if it seems like it’s not working that day, you still have to sit for 10 minutes and do nothing else. If the timer goes off and I want to sit longer, that’s great.

This morning a green hummingbird flew in, tapped me on the forehead with a wing, and took off. He was so close I could hear the buzzing of his wings through my earbuds.

Now I’m not assigning any deep meaning to this, but it’s something interesting that happened. And something that couldn’t have happened if I chose to skip today. It’s also unlikely to ever happen again. You never know how many times you missed opportunities just by not showing up.

Keeping Score

Garmin has a breathwork activity that I use to both record and time my session. After my meditation, I have a short journaling practice where I check off meditation as done. I also record it in the Heroic app. When I check it off, I stop for a second and think “That’s like me”.

Taking a second to celebrate all the small wins is important. You have to counteract all the negative self-talk that happens automatically.

Doing It First Thing

For me, it’s extremely valuable to do meditation first thing in the morning. My brain isn’t spinning yet and it’s far easier to get in the correct state. If something happens and you can’t, don’t let that be an excuse to skip. Get it in whenever you can.

This brings up another important point. Don’t judge your practice.

It doesn’t matter how bad you think it is going. Your mind keeps running away with thoughts and you have to keep starting over. That is OK. The important thing is setting the timer and doing the thing. Those times when it felt the worst were probably the times you needed it the most.

Anchor Your Habits

I’ve intentionally anchored this habit to my first cup of coffee. I’m not going to forget about the coffee, so I’m not going to forget about the meditation. In fact, the thought pops up automatically now.

I would have to intentionally decide to skip meditation. Sitting in the same chair, in the same place every morning also is part of that anchor. Keeping your environment consistent helps keep the habit consistent.

Do It Every Day

Yeah, you already know this one. Skipping a day leads to 2 days, which leads to a week. . .

This was a quick look at my Meditation practice and how to form habits. If you want more like this Subscribe and check my bio for links to sign up for my newsletter.